E-Books

Readings

Survey results

43% of the librarians contacted anticipate an increase of their budget for ebooks for 2008 compared to last year; 1% expect this part of their budget to decrease. In most cases, these funds will be allocated from the book budget.

85% of the librarians contacted purchase e-books as part of a collection and 45% currently acquire individual titles.

For 78% of the respondents, the priority is placed on purchasing frontlists before backlists from publishers.

The subject clusters most attractive for e-books for the librarians interviewed are reference, science or computer science titles.

45% of the librarians are unlikely to purchase a book in print format if they are purchasing it electronically. 6% are likely or very likely to duplicate the information. For the remaining of the sample, the decision varies greatly based on the subject area and is made on a case-by-case basis.

E-books are perceived as a very convenient tool to broaden library patrons’ access to quality content but too many technical and practical problems still create barriers.

eBooks--The End User Perspective (PDF, 1.6 MB) Survey of users at five university libraries, conducted in 2008, found that eBooks are best suited for research purposes or in a search environment where the user needs to locate specific information.